


All the Lonely People

by bellatemple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, Gen, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean did best in the hours after midnight, when he could forget that there was anything missing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Lonely People

**Author's Note:**

> Holy crap, I used a Beatles song for my title. The world may well end, soon.

Dean came in after half the people he worked for went to bed. There was something reassuring about that, the rows and rows of darkened windows and balconies, the long stretches of empty hallway as he did his rounds. The residents here didn't pay his wages directly, but Dean had an easier time thinking of them as his boss than the man who'd handed him his uniform and plastic badge. There were hundreds of them here, tucked away behind faceless, numbered doors, and most of them Dean would never meet. It was a quiet building in a quiet neighborhood, and Dean's job was easy, if boring.

They weren't all asleep. This close to a major city, Dean wasn't the only one working the graveyard shift, and there were the habitual night owls, besides. He got one or two lock outs a week, and the occasional drunk who needed a hand back to their apartment. A handful of the residents were students; he'd broken up a rowdy party or two in his time. The guy who liked to play his crime shows at full volume on a Tuesday night moved out the week before, finally tired of the dirty looks from his neighbors and threats to call the cops. Still, it startled Dean when he walked around a corner or boarded an elevator and found someone else there.

Then there were the regulars, people he came across almost every night. Bill, in his fifties, went all the way downstairs from the tenth floor after midnight to walk and smoke in the parking lot. He didn't have a place with a balcony, and his kids would yell at him if he smoked inside. He was a fixture, rain or shine. He even came out in the blizzard last year, wearing shorts and a parka, just to have a smoke.

"I'll quit," he said. "This is it, this is my last one," but he was back outside the very next night, staring Dean down, daring him to comment.

Other nights, when the silence seemed a little too thick, Bill would offer Dean a smoke, any excuse to hang around and not be alone in the dark. Dean took him up on it once. Took a single drag, felt the oddly familiar tickle of smoke against his throat -- and then nearly hacked up a lung on the exhale.

 _That's nice,_ the voice said. _No, really. Cancer will look good on you._

Bill thumped Dean on the back and laughed, and Dean handed the cigarette back, though Bill was only half-finished with his own.

"Always gotta try it, huh," Bill said, and Dean smiled awkwardly in return and agreed.

Bill didn't hear the voice, the pestering tone in the back of Dean's head, at once comfortingly alien and terrifyingly familiar -- or if he did, he never mentioned it. Not that Dean ever brought it up. He turned Bill down when he offered his pack after that, not wanting to give the voice a chance to yell.

Dottie was Dean's favorite resident. She walked the hallways at the top of the tower in the early morning hours like a ghost, a slow amble from floor to floor just to keep herself in motion. "It's always warm," she told Dean, "and the walls are there to lean on when I get tired."

Dottie was 83.

"I like 14 the best. Most doors here are boring, but 14 knows how to give them real personality. You can feel it, when you walk by."

Dottie's sight wasn't the best -- she was just this side of legally blind -- but she'd long since given up on glasses. "I haven't seen my reflection in five years," she said the first night they met. "If I look, I'll see I'm old and I won't want to flirt any more."

Dean told her she was still as cute as ever and she smiled wickedly, graying dentures flashing. "You're sweet," she said. "That must be a prerequisite. Mike was sweet, too."

Mike was they guy who'd worked the night shift before Dean. He'd quit to go back to school, and Dottie always asked if Dean was going to, too.

"Don't think you're too old," she told him. "You won't know what old is till you're at least 70."

Dean thought maybe he'd already been there, but couldn't remember why. He tried asking the voice once, but it didn't say a word. The voice never said much when Dottie was around.

It got louder around Beth. Beth was Dean's age, maybe a bit younger, a night nurse who spent her time off trying to run off extra pounds in the parking lot. She was filled to the brim with opinions, would talk his ear off about politics and movies if he let her. Dean didn't have any of his own to share, but Beth didn't care. She lived alone, a recent transplant to the area, and she was lonely. They all were in their own way. The hours after midnight belonged to lonely people.

Every time she ran, Dean wanted to tell her to stop. To join a gym or walk with Dottie, safe beyond the glass front doors.

 _Watch her,_ the voice would say. _She doesn't know. There's things that come out in the dark._

So Dean watched, keeping her company or standing guard at a distance. The voice seemed to know that she wouldn't listen if he told her about the dangers in the dark. And if Dean sometimes felt a little less lonely, a little more secure himself listening to Beth, the voice never commented on it.

"Was it good, then?" She asked one night, as they jogged their way down the center aisle, Dean flicking his flashlight at the cars as they went to check for parking stickers.

Dean turned the light on her, frowning, trying to remember if he'd slept with her and somehow forgot.

"What you were missing," she continued, pressing her fingers to her pulse point and checking her watch. "You must have found it. I've never seen you so relaxed."

Dean shook his head and slowed to a walk as they reached the end of the line of cars. "I didn't --"

"Oh, I know." Beth flapped a hand at him, her other dropping from her neck to her hip. She was hardly winded, ran almost every day, but the extra padding around her middle never seemed to burn off. "But I could hear it, you know. It's in the voice."

The voice. She could hear it? But how --

"Well, that's it for me," she said, patting his shoulder as she aimed back toward the door. "Got a double, tomorrow. No one's ever ready for late summer sinuses." She smiled up at him, now walking backward to keep looking him in the eye as he stood frozen to his spot. "I'm happy for you, Dean. You deserve good things."

Good things. Yeah. Right.

 _You deserve good things,_ the voice echoed as he stumbled through the rest of his rounds. _You deserve good things,_ it said when the foxes in the woods behind the building started calling, nearly scaring him half to death before he remembered what they were. _You deserve good things,_ in the office while he filed his paperwork for the night, _good things_ as he pulled onto the street and headed for home.

The tower wasn't much in the grand scheme of things -- inexpensive for the area and showing its age -- but it was the Ritz compared to where Dean lived, just a few miles away. He expected the refrain to start up again as he unlocked his double deadbolt and shuffled, exhausted, into his tiny apartment.

 _You deserve_ better _things,_ the voice said, and Dean lowered himself onto his futon, his head in his hands. He wondered if this was how it started for those who lost it, who brought rifles to work or blew out the pilot light and turned on the gas, or just vanished, disappearing one day to the next, swallowed up by the world.

He wondered if maybe he kind of liked some of those options.

 _You deserve --_

"Stop it," Dean said aloud, glad for once that he didn't share the apartment with anyone and that his neighbors were all too out of their own heads to listen through the thin layers of sheetrock. The voice went silent and Dean curled up on his side, too tired to do more than take off his belt and boots.

The next day was Wednesday and Dean had Wednesdays off. He spent it how he usually did, alternating sleep and TV, a bottle of jack never far from his hand. Beth had been right, he _had_ been relaxed, just not because he'd found anything. He'd forgotten what he'd lost, forgotten it was lost at all, and her casual words had reopened the hole where whatever it was had been. There was a cavern in his chest around which he could hardly stand to breathe. He didn't know how he'd managed to forget it was there. He slept when he could, and when the dreams of screaming or of chasing his faceless ghosts woke him up, he filled the cavern with booze.

 _You deserve so much better,_ the voice whispered.

"Get the fuck out of my head."

 _And go where, your liver?_ it snarked, and for a moment, Dean was just glad to hear it talk about something other than what he deserved. _I think I'd drown._

Dean rolled over, shoving his pillow over his ears, and the voice let him sleep again.

Thursday he had work, and he woke early, well before sunset, to run errands before heading to the tower. Whatever else it wanted from him, the voice wouldn't let him starve, and he headed to the store, stocking up on frozen meals and chips, and even the occasional vegetable. He froze up again in the soup aisle in front of a display of Spaghettios and thought he might be sick.

 _We deserved better,_ the voice said, heavy and sad against Dean's frontal lobe.

"This has to stop," Dean answered. A woman pushing her kid along in her cart stared, then hurried away. Dean left his own cart where it stood and headed out of the store at a run, right past his car and into the street. Traffic swerved around him with a squeal of tires, barely audible over the sudden scream of the voice in his head, shouting his name and crying out in terror. He collapsed to his knees on the median, breath coming in a hard sob.

 _Dean!_ the voice shouted. _Dean, don't do this. You can't do this. It needs to stop, you have to help --_

"How?" Dean begged. "Please, I don't understand." He turned his face toward the sky, deep blue and cloudless. "Tell me _how!_ "

It came with a clap of thunder, and the world stuttered to a halt around him. It took the form of a thin man with dark hair in a battered tan coat.

 _Castiel,_ said the voice, and this time, Dean did the echoing.

"Dean," the man said. He looked own at Dean, concern faintly creasing his brow. "I didn't know it would happen again so fast."

Dean swallowed. "What's wrong with me?"

"I've found it's better to simply show you." The man pressed his fingers to Dean's forehead and the world changed.

He was kneeling now on hard tiles, his knees protesting the sudden change from the grassy median. He stared at the speckled floor and listened to the beep of a heart monitor behind him.

"This is --" Dean broke off and rubbed his eyes. "Am I crazy?"

"No," the man said. "Look."

Dean turned, his body resisting as he dragged his eyes across the floor to the foot of a hospital bed. Something in him, something deeper and darker than the voice, told him to stop, not to see, but the man put his hand on Dean's shoulder, holding him still, and the voice pressed him forward. Dean raised his eyes.

His brother lay prone on the bed, somehow dwarfed by the wires and tubes spiralling out of him. Dean choked as a rush of memory spilled forth, filling the chasm in his heart.

"Sam."

He shrugged off Castiel's hand and rose to his feet, his fingers twitching to touch Sam's pale forehead, brush back his hair.

"Sam," he said again, his breath rushing out of him. "Cas, how --"

"I told you," Castiel said, his voice somehow both cold and melancholy. "I said not to return his soul."

"No," Dean whispered. His legs shook, but rather than going out, they propelled him onward, to his brother's side. The voice -- Sam's voice -- had fallen silent, and Dean pleaded in his head for it to return.

"You wanted me to fix it," Castiel said. "I can't make him whole, but I can make you forget."

"I didn't --" Dean tried. "I couldn't -- he's _Sam_."

"Yes," said Castiel. "My mental blocks can only hold the memories at bay for so long. Every few months you begin to remember."

Dean's mouth went dry, and he spun again, grabbing Castiel by the coat. "You've messed with my head."

"Yes."

Dean shook him. "You did this! All of you -- our whole lives -- you couldn't just leave him alone!"

Castiel stared back, impassive and immovable. "Neither could you."

Dean let him go, spinning away, unable to meet his cold eyes. "Just go, Cas."

"I'll return at sunrise." There was a flutter of wings, and Dean didn't have to turn to know he was gone.

Dean spent the night at his brother's side, as he'd done too many times before. He stared down at Sam's slack face, trying to will life back into it, though he didn't say a word.

He'd forgotten about his brother. There was nothing he could say.

Any nurses on duty gave them a wide berth -- Sam had been here so long, unchanging, that they saw no reason to stop by now until an alarm went off or it was time to change out the tubes. The voice that had chastised Dean, that reminded him to eat, that teased him and tried to keep him whole -- Sam's voice -- was quiet now. It had no reason to speak with Sam there in front of him.

Dean wanted it back.

What was worse? To hear Sam and not know him, or to remember Sam but never have him back? Hell had broken Dean, but it had destroyed Sam, leaving only this shell in its wake. Dean knew without asking that they couldn't go back. Sam's soul wouldn't be removed again, not until he was truly, permanently dead. Sam's body breathed on its own, its heart beat, but it would never do anything more. All that was left of his brother was the voice in Dean's head.

Castiel appeared exactly at sunrise, appearing next to Dean. "I'm sorry," he said.

Dean turned his head, keeping his chin low, and stared up at Castiel. The angel was as large as Sam seemed small, towering over the brothers, his shoulders straight, his eyes kind, but so strangely detached. He looked larger every time Dean remembered, or perhaps every time Dean got just a little bit smaller, worn down a little bit further. He wondered how many more times this could happen before everything that made him Dean wore away entirely.

"You're a son of bitch, Castiel."

Castiel didn't move, but Dean could feel something shift in the air around him. "It is as it must be, Dean."

"You said you'd save him."

"You didn't stand down."

Dean wished he had the strength to push himself out of the chair, to force Castiel and his swollen sense of self-importance to fix his brother. Then maybe he could force him to let go of the souls he'd stolen from Purgatory.

Dean didn't wish for the strength to fix himself. He couldn't be fixed.

"It's your choice, Dean," Castiel said, his hand already held in position over Dean's head.

"No, Cas." Dean couldn't remember feeling this tired in his entire life. "It's really not."

Castiel placed his palm on Dean's forehead.

On Friday, Dean had work. He woke early, well before sunset, to run errands. He'd skipped out on groceries the day before, and his fridge was nearly empty.

Dean's boss -- the one who signed his paychecks, not the ones who really mattered -- met him at the front office to talk about what had happened the day before. Dean handed him a note, signed by a Doctor James Novak.

"No one's ready for late summer sinuses," Dean said. His boss laughed.

"Don't I know it." He folded the note and tucked it into the inside pocket on his suit jacket. "Just call out earlier next time. We had to call Mike in, and he missed his class."

Dean nodded and signed the written warning, then strapped on his belt, with its pockets for his security badge, his walkie-talkie, and his flashlight, barely blinking at the lack of a real gun. Dottie would have her stories to tell, about her grandkids and their colleges and ball games. Maybe he'd bum a smoke from Bill tonight, give himself an excuse to stick around and chat. Dean needed people to talk to, to drown out the quiet little voice in his head, and they needed him. They likely had their voices, as well.

The hours after midnight belonged to the lonely, but sometimes, at least, they could spend them together.

The end


End file.
